William Lashner - Past Due

“How did Colfax know about the stuff Tommy gave Jimmy?” said Kimberly.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Maybe it was just someone else with a British accent. There are a lot of those in the world.”

“Do you really think that’s it?”

“I don’t know, V. I don’t understand anything.”

I hadn’t told Kimberly about my suspicions. She was too close to Eddie Dean, she would tip my hand. I thought it better to get the proof from California first, and then let the police handle it, but still I had my concerns. “I want you to be careful, Kimberly. Very careful.”

She turned to stare at me.

“Let’s just assume,” I said, “we don’t know anything about anybody. It’s safer that way. Have you thought any more on why you got this job?”

“Maybe they saw something in the interview.”

“Maybe they did.”

“I have talents.”

“I’m not saying you’re not qualified. Or that you’re not doing a great job. And I’m not saying that if they were picking on looks alone you wouldn’t have snagged it easy, being you are fabulous-looking, no doubt about it. But I want you to be careful.”

“What do you think is going on?”

“I’m not sure. Not yet, at least, though soon I will be, you can count on it. But believe me when I tell you this, there is something not right going on and it is rooted in the past and it is going to end very very badly.”

“So, V,” said Kimberly, her eyes turning suddenly bright. “You really think I look fabulous?”

“Absolutely,” I said, and her bright smile at my compliment was both touching and a little sad.

She went back to her reading and I began to think about her. Why again had she been hired? What did she know that Eddie Dean, a stranger with a mangled face who had the same allergy to fish as had Tommy Greeley, would find valuable? I looked at her again, saw again the same angles and lines of the pictures on my wall. She was reading Alura Straczynski’s journal and so in my mind’s eye she was somehow taking on Alura Straczynski’s shape. Look at her, the way her neck stretched, look at the shape of her ear, look at her hand, sitting on the page, the way it curled, the length of its fingers, the shape of its thumb. I had seen it before, I had a picture of that very same hand.

“Oh God, how disgusting,” said Kimberly. “TMI.”

“Excuse me?”

“Really now, is this something the world needs to know? The sensation of it, the taste of it, the burning as it slid up her throat. Some things are best left unsaid, believe me. I mean, do we really need to know every last detail of this? Do we really care that she woke up that morning bowing and scraping to the porcelain god?”

COMING HOME FROMBrockton, I shouldn’t have been surprised, what with the specter of Tommy Greeley’s resurrection still haunting me, to see my dying father come heartily back to life.

“Where you been?” he asked, sitting up in his bed, free of the respirator and mask, with only the small plastic canula feeding oxygen into his nose. “That doctor was looking for you.”

“I was away, on business. What happened?”

“I don’t know. It started working.”

“The drug?”

“Yeah, the drug. That Primaxin thing. It finally kicked in. Working like a charm.”

“Apparently so.” I checked the monitors. Oxygen rate a robust ninety-four percent, respiratory rate a leisurely sixteen, heart rate down to well under a hundred. I took another look at his face to make sure I wasn’t in the wrong room. No, it was him, my dad, who was stomping on death’s welcome mat just two nights before, now looking surprisingly vigorous. And what was that right there, on his face? Oh my God, was that a hint of a smile?

“They took me off the respirator last night. Now if they take this pipe out of my prick I could walk out of here.”

“What about the operation?”

“I thought you was here to cheer me up.”

“You don’t look like you need cheering up. Did they say anything about the operation?”

“Right after they’re done with the drug. Sit down.”

I pulled a chair over. He reached out, put a hand on my arm. I gave his paw a wary glance.

“How you doing?” he said.

“Fine,” I said.

“Really. How’s it going, son?”

“Fine.”

“We don’t talk enough.”

“Yes, we do.”

“No, we don’t. Tell me about your life. Tell me about your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations.”

I took his hand off my arm. “Hey, Dad, you’re creeping me out.”

“Am I?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Am I?”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

Something in my face must have been quite hysterical because he broke out into a wet bout of laughter.

“Okay,” he said as his laughter dissolved into a fit of coughs. “Yeah, I’m kidding.”

“It was just a joke?”

“Got ya, you little bastard.”

I did a little shaky thing, like I was skived to the bone. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“You know, life would be an all right thing if they could pull a plastic snake out of your throat every night.”

“But just remember,” I said, “no matter how good you feel right now, things will eventually turn to shit.”

“I know it.”

“That’s just the way of it for us.”

“You’re preaching to the converted.”

“Good. Just so long as we’re clear.”

“We are. So” – he again put his hand on my arm, gave me a wink – “how’s the love life?”

“Stop it,” I said, even as his laughter began again.

It only took the dinner tray to sour his mood. Salisbury steak, overcooked peas, something blue. He dropped his fork with disgust.

“I can’t stand it in here no more,” he said. “They should just sharpen their damn knives and get it over with.”

“Don’t worry, they will.”

He let out a hearty curse. Now that was my dad.

“So what happened?” I said.

“I told you. The drug.”

“No, with the girl. In that room. With the old guy.”

“Curious, are you?”

“Yeah. You know. I’ve been thinking about it.”

“So have I. For a lot longer than you.”

“Okay. So what happened?”

“I told you,” he said. “She kissed me. She put her hand on the back of my neck, pressed me toward her, and she kissed me. And, son of a bitch, I kissed her back.”

He kisses her back. Her hand at the back of his neck, his eyes closed, the softness, the wetness, the warmth of her mouth. He lets the electricity slide through him, numb him, he loses himself in the moment and lets the moment expand until it stretches out in four dimensions and he is adrift in the sensation, no here nor there, no then, just now, just her, just the feel of her hand, the pressure of her lips, the silvery slickness of her tongue. Until she pulls away, and he opens his eyes, and he falls back into the bloody hell of that treasure room, with the old man dead at his feet.

He sees it all again, the confrontation, the box of coins slamming into the old man’s scalp, the old man dropping to the floor. My father is in a panic, his mind races out of control. What to do? Where to run? Who to tell?

What have you done? he says to her. What are we going to do?

But he slows down when he sees her pretty face, the sharp blue of her eyes, the calm of her features.

“It was like she was taking a walk in the park,” he said. “It was like nothing had happened.”

I know where the jewelry is, she says.

What are you talking about?

I know where everything is, she says.

Do you realize what you’ve done?

It was an accident, she says. You know that. Jesse, it was an accident.